"They were superior, they knew it and were proud. And so they pushed out and enveloped the races and worlds of the area now known as the desert. Their rule was a tyranny unequaled in Galactic history."
The Earthmen never moved, and Roymer went on.
"But the Antha were not members of the Federation, and, therefore, they were not answerable for their acts. We could only stand by and watch as they spread their vicious rule from world to world. They were absolutely ruthless.
"As an example of their kind of rule, I will tell you of their crime against the Apectans.
"The planet of Apectus not only resisted the Antha, but somehow managed to hold out against their approach for several years. The Antha finally conquered and then, in retaliation for the Apectans' valor, they conducted the most brutal of their mass experiments.
"They were a brilliant people. They had been experimenting with the genes of heredity. Somehow they found a way to alter the genes of the Apectans, who were humanoids like themselves, and they did it on a mass scale. They did not choose to exterminate the race, their revenge was much greater. Every Apectan born since the Antha invasion, has been born without one arm."
Jansen sucked in his breath. It was a very horrible thing to hear, and a sudden memory came into his brain. Caesar did that, he thought. He cut off the right hands of the Gauls. Peculiar coincidence. Jansen felt uneasy.
Roymer paused for a moment.
"The news of what happened to the Apectans set the Galactic peoples up in arms, but it was not until the Antha attacked a Federation world that we finally moved against them. It was the greatest war in the history of Life.
"You will perhaps understand how great a people the Antha were when I tell you that they alone, unaided, dependent entirely upon their own resources, fought the rest of the Galactics, and fought them to a standstill. As the terrible years went by we lost whole races and planets—like this one, which was one the Antha destroyed—and yet we could not defeat them.
"It was only after many years, when a Galactic invented the most dangerous weapon of all, that we won. The invention—of which only the Galactic Council has knowledge—enabled us to turn the suns of the Antha into novae, at long range. One by one we destroyed the Antha worlds. We hunted them through all the planets of the desert; for the first time in history the edict of the Federation was death, death for an entire race. At last there were no longer any habitable worlds where the Antha had been. We burned their worlds, and ran them down in space. Thirty thousand years ago, the civilization of the Antha perished."
Roymer had finished. He looked at the Earthmen out of grave, tired old eyes.
Cohn was staring in open-mouth fascination, but Jansen—unaccountably felt a chill. The story of Caesar remained uncomfortably in his mind. And he had a quick, awful suspicion.
"Are you sure you got all of them?"
"No. Some surely must have escaped. There were too many in space, and space is without limits."
Jansen wanted to know: "Have any of them been heard of since?"
Roymer's smile left him as the truth came out. "No. Not until now."
There were only a few more seconds. He gave them time to understand. He could not help telling them that he was sorry, he even apologized. And then he sent the order with his mind.
The Antha died quickly and silently, without pain.
* * *
Only thirty thousand years, Roymer was thinking, but thirty thousand years, and they came back out to the stars. They have no memory now of what they were or what they have done. They started all over again, the old history of the race has been lost, and in thirty thousand years they came all the way back.
Roymer shook his head with sad wonder and awe. The most brilliant people of all.
Goladan came in quietly with the final reports.
"There are no charts," he grumbled, "no maps at all. We will not be able to trace them to their home star."
Roymer did not know, really, what was right, to be disappointed or relieved. We cannot destroy them now, he thought, not right away. He could not help being relieved. Maybe this time there will be a way, and they will not have to be destroyed. They could be—
He remembered the edict—the edict of death. The Antha had forged it for themselves and it was just. He realized that there wasn't much hope.
The reports were on his desk and he regarded them with a wry smile. There was indeed no way to trace them back. They had no charts, only a regular series of course-check coordinates which were preset on their home planet and which were not decipherable. Even at this stage of their civilization they had already anticipated the consequences of having their ship fall into alien hands. And this although they lived in the desert.
Goladan startled him with an anxious question:
"What can we do?"
Roymer was silent.
We can wait, he thought. Gradually, one by one, they will come out of the desert, and when they come we will be waiting. Perhaps one day we will follow one back and destroy their world, and perhaps before then we will find a way to save them.
Suddenly, as his eyes wandered over the report before him and he recalled the ingenious mechanism of the freeze, a chilling, unbidden thought came into his brain.
And perhaps, he thought calmly, for he was a philosophical man, they will come out already equipped to rule the galaxy.
Afterword by Jim Baen
This story bowled me over when I read it at age fourteen because it answered a question that'd plagued me practically my whole thinking life (the past two years, maybe): all those planets had to be inhabited by all those aliens; so where were they? (This is Fermi's Paradox to people who know who Fermi was. I didn't, of course.)
I was born and raised in a rural community on the New York/Pennsylvania border. It was very easy for me to imagine a universe which was without intelligent life for an immense distance surrounding me. But one relative had an attic of SF magazines, including the Astounding with "All the Way Back."
Shaara's answer (and I suspect it was a conscious answer, albeit a flip one) mapped the data perfectly. Maybe the reason it seemed so profound to me is that in 1957 we all knew we were going to die in a thermonuclear holocaust in a few years. What was this but that, writ very large?
The Last Command
by Keith Laumer
Preface by David Drake
I was twenty-one when I read "The Last Command" on its appearance in the January 1967 issue of Analog. I was in my senior year of college and probably as mature then as I'm ever going to be. I read most of the other stories I've picked for this anthology when I was much younger.
It's not quite correct to describe Keith Laumer's Bolo series as stories about war machines. The three that really have an impact are about veterans who've been discarded by society; that the veterans happen to be machines is really beside the point. "The Last Command" makes this explicit.
The story hit me very hard the first time I read it. I'm not sure why: I don't come from a military family, and I'd been accepted at Duke Law School. Students were deferred from the draft. I never dreamed that someday I'd be a veteran.
Then things changed.
In January 1971, I got back to the World and took off my uniform for the last time. Since that day I've never, in my heart of hearts, been able to forget that I'm a veteran.
1
I come to awareness, sensing a residual oscillation traversing me from an arbitrarily designated heading of 035. From the damping rate I compute that the shock was of intensity 8.7, emanating from a source within the limits 72 meters/46 meters. I activate my primary screens, trigger a return salvo. There is no response. I engage reserve energy cells, bring my secondary battery to bear—futilely. It is apparent that I have been ranged by the Enemy and severely damaged.
My positional sensors indicate that I am resting at an angle of 13 degrees 14 seconds, deflected from a baseline at 21 points from median. I attempt to right myself, but encounter massive resistance. I activate my
forward scanners, shunt power to my I-R microstrobes. Not a flicker illuminates my surroundings. I am encased in utter blackness.
Now a secondary shock wave approaches, rocks me with an intensity of 8.2. It is apparent that I must withdraw from my position—but my drive trains remain inert under full thrust. I shift to base emergency power, try again. Pressure mounts; I sense my awareness fading under the intolerable strain; then, abruptly, resistance falls off and I am in motion.
It is not the swift maneuvering of full drive, however; I inch forward, as if restrained by massive barriers. Again I attempt to penetrate the surrounding darkness and this time perceive great irregular outlines shot through with fracture planes. I probe cautiously, then more vigorously, encountering incredible densities.
I channel all available power to a single ranging pulse, direct it upward. The indication is so at variance with all experience that I repeat the test at a new angle. Now I must accept the fact: I am buried under 207.6 meters of solid rock!
I direct my attention to an effort to orient myself to my uniquely desperate situation. I run through an action-status checklist of thirty thousand items, feel dismay at the extent of power loss. My main cells are almost completely drained, my reserve units at no more than .4 charge. Thus my sluggishness is explained. I review the tactical situation, recall the triumphant announcement from my commander that the Enemy forces were annihilated, that all resistance had ceased. In memory, I review the formal procession; in company with my comrades of the Dinochrome Brigade, many of us deeply scarred by Enemy action, we parade before the Grand Commandant, then assemble on the depot ramp. At command, we bring our music storage cells into phase and display our Battle Anthem. The nearby star radiates over a full spectrum unfiltered by atmospheric haze. It is a moment of glorious triumph. Then the final command is given—
The rest is darkness. But it is apparent that the victory celebration was premature. The Enemy has counterattacked with a force that has come near to immobilizing me. The realization is shocking, but the .1 second of leisurely introspection has clarified my position. At once, I broadcast a call on Brigade Action wave length:
"Unit LNE to Command, requesting permission to file VSR."
I wait, sense no response, call again, using full power. I sweep the enclosing volume of rock with an emergency alert warning. I tune to the all-units band, await the replies of my comrades of the Brigade. None answer. Now I must face the reality: I alone have survived the assault.
I channel my remaining power to my drive and detect a channel of reduced density. I press for it and the broken rock around me yields reluctantly. Slowly, I move forward and upward. My pain circuitry shocks my awareness center with emergency signals; I am doing irreparable damage to my overloaded neural systems, but my duty is clear: I must seek out and engage the Enemy.
2
Emerging from behind the blast barrier, Chief Engineer Pete Reynolds of the New Devonshire Port Authority pulled off his rock mask and spat grit from his mouth.
"That's the last one; we've bottomed out at just over two hundred yards. Must have hit a hard stratum down there."
"It's almost sundown," the paunchy man beside him said shortly. "You're a day and a half behind schedule."
"We'll start backfilling now, Mr. Mayor. I'll have pilings poured by oh-nine hundred tomorrow, and with any luck the first section of pad will be in place in time for the rally."
"I'm—" The mayor broke off, looked startled. "I thought you told me that was the last charge to be fired . . ."
Reynolds frowned. A small but distinct tremor had shaken the ground underfoot. A few feet away, a small pebble balanced atop another toppled and fell with a faint clatter.
"Probably a big rock fragment falling," he said. At that moment, a second vibration shook the earth, stronger this time. Reynolds heard a rumble and a distant impact as rock fell from the side of the newly blasted excavation. He whirled to the control shed as the door swung back and Second Engineer Mayfield appeared.
"Take a look at this, Pete!"
Reynolds went across to the hut, stepped inside. Mayfield was bending over the profiling table.
"What do you make of it?" he pointed. Superimposed on the heavy red contour representing the detonation of the shaped charge that had completed the drilling of the final pile core were two other traces, weak but distinct.
"About .1 intensity." Mayfield looked puzzled. "What—"
The tracking needle dipped suddenly, swept up the screen to peak at .21, dropped back. The hut trembled. A stylus fell from the edge of the table. The red face of Mayor Dougherty burst through the door.
"Reynolds, have you lost your mind? What's the idea of blasting while I'm standing out in the open? I might have been killed!"
"I'm not blasting," Reynolds snapped. "Jim, get Eaton on the line, see if they know anything." He stepped to the door, shouted. A heavyset man in sweat-darkened coveralls swung down from the seat of a cable-lift rig.
"Boss, what goes on?" he called as he came up. "Damn near shook me out of my seat!"
"I don't know. You haven't set any trim charges?"
"Jesus, no, boss. I wouldn't set no charges without your say-so."
"Come on." Reynolds started out across the rubble-littered stretch of barren ground selected by the Authority as the site of the new spaceport. Halfway to the open mouth of the newly-blasted pit, the ground under his feet rocked violently enough to make him stumble. A gout of dust rose from the excavation ahead. Loose rock danced on the ground. Beside him the drilling chief grabbed his arm.
"Boss, we better get back!"
Reynolds shook him off, kept going. The drill chief swore and followed. The shaking of the ground went on, a sharp series of thumps interrupting a steady trembling.
"It's a quake!" Reynolds yelled over the low rumbling sound.
He and the chief were at the rim of the core now.
"It can't be a quake, boss," the latter shouted. "Not in these formations!"
"Tell it to the geologists—" The rock slab they were standing on rose a foot, dropped back. Both men fell. The slab bucked like a small boat in choppy water.
"Let's get out of here!" Reynolds was up and running. Ahead, a fissure opened, gaped a foot wide. He jumped it, caught a glimpse of black depths, a glint of wet clay twenty feet below—
A hoarse scream stopped him in his tracks. He spun, saw the drill chief down, a heavy splinter of rock across his legs. He jumped to him, heaved at the rock. There was blood on the man's shirt. The chief's hands beat the dusty rock before him. Then other men were there, grunting, sweaty hands gripping beside Reynolds. The ground rocked. The roar from under the earth had risen to a deep, steady rumble. They lifted the rock aside, picked up the injured man, and stumbled with him to the aid shack.
The mayor was there, white-faced.
"What is it, Reynolds? By God, if you're responsible—"
"Shut up!" Reynolds brushed him aside, grabbed the phone, punched keys.
"Eaton! What have you got on this temblor?"
"Temblor, hell." The small face on the four-inch screen looked like a ruffled hen. "What in the name of Order are you doing out there? I'm reading a whole series of displacements originating from that last core of yours! What did you do, leave a pile of trim charges lying around?"
"It's a quake. Trim charges, hell! This thing's broken up two hundred yards of surface rock. It seems to be traveling north-northeast—"
"I see that; a traveling earthquake!" Eaton flapped his arms, a tiny and ridiculous figure against a background of wall charts and framed diplomas. "Well—do something, Reynolds! Where's Mayor Dougherty?"
"Underfoot!" Reynolds snapped, and cut off.
Outside, a layer of sunset-stained dust obscured the sweep of level plain. A rock-dozer rumbled up, ground to a halt by Reynolds. A man jumped down.
"I got the boys moving equipment out," he panted. "The thing's cutting a trail straight as a rule for the highway!" He pointed to a raised roadbed a quarter
mile away.
"How fast is it moving?"
"She's done a hundred yards; it hasn't been ten minutes yet!"
"If it keeps up another twenty minutes, it'll be into the Intermix!"
"Scratch a few million cees and six months' work then, Pete!"
"And Southside Mall's a couple miles farther."
"Hell, it'll damp out before then!"
"Maybe. Grab a field car, Dan."
"Pete!" Mayfield came up at a trot. "This thing's building! The centroid's moving on a heading of oh-two-two—"
"How far subsurface?"
"It's rising; started at two-twenty yards, and it's up to one-eighty!"
"What the hell have we stirred up?" Reynolds stared at Mayfield as the field car skidded to a stop beside them.
"Stay with it, Jim. Give me anything new. We're taking a closer look." He climbed into the rugged vehicle.
"Take a blast truck—"
"No time!" He waved and the car gunned away into the pall of dust.
3
The rock car pulled to a stop at the crest of the three-level Intermix on a lay-by designed to permit tourists to enjoy the view of the site of the proposed port, a hundred feet below. Reynolds studied the progress of the quake through field glasses. From this vantage point, the path of the phenomenon was a clearly defined trail of tilted and broken rock, some of the slabs twenty feet across. As he watched, the fissures lengthened.
"It looks like a mole's trail." Reynolds handed the glasses to his companion, thumbed the send key on the car radio.
"Jim, get Eaton and tell him to divert all traffic from the Circular south of Zone Nine. Cars are already clogging the right-of-way. The dust is visible from a mile away, and when the word gets out there's something going on, we'll be swamped."